


Desertion

by Vanny



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-06-23
Updated: 2011-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-20 16:09:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vanny/pseuds/Vanny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The former Jack Noir leads his not-so-merry band of exiles across the Alternian desert, toward the place where they will eventually build a town and become the formidable Midnight Crew. (First-person narration, switching POV after every chapter or two; Derse names used for clarity and because I am lazy)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Droog (I)

I wake up disoriented. It’s hot and these aren’t my clothes. A sickly rainbow of sand is reeling out in front of me, and my chin is jostling against something hard. Jack would have panicked, but I don’t. That’s why he keeps me around. I close my eyes and take a deep breath of the scorching air and try to get my bearings.

It doesn’t take long. The hard thing under me is a shoulder, and I’m bouncing because it’s carrying me. That explains why I feel like hell. One explains the other, anyway. I’m not pleased about me being the one who couldn’t hack it.

I open my eyes again and take stock. The one carrying me is the Brute, of course. No surprise. He’s built for violence and packing loads. He must feel me moving, but for once he keeps his mouth shut.

My neck hurts when I move it to look around, and I feel sand gritting in the join at the back of my head. There’s no one else out here. A sideways glance tells me that Jack is hanging with his head down and his arms dangling, over the Brute’s other shoulder. His mouth is open and his eyes are closed. I don’t blame him. I’d rather still be passed out, too.

It takes me a minute to find the Droll, but when I do, it’s embarrassingly obvious--he’s hanging a little below me, curled up in the Brute’s hood, which has been dismantled and tied up into a kind of sling. Good thinking. Should give the Brute more credit. The Droll’s face, even asleep, is a mask of misery. I’ve never seen him look troubled before. It’s disturbing.

Having checked everything off my mental list, I smack the back of the Brute’s neck to get his attention. “Hey.” He grunts in answer. Close enough. “Put me down,” I say, “I can walk.”

He plants a big hand on my back, I guess to keep me from going anywhere. “That’s what ya said last time,” he rumbles. He sounds winded.

“What are you talking--” and then I remember. I’d been carrying the Droll, his legs locked around my waist, his arms around my neck, his face pressed against it. The Brute had Jack against his chest, shading him with the spread of his shoulders. My lungs were burning and my mouth felt full of dust, and I couldn’t quit thinking the same useless thought again and again: _By the time you feel thirsty, you’re already dehydrated._ And then I fell. My legs gave me no warning. The last thing I remember is the Brute scooping me up, my wrist cracking against the back of Jack’s head. I must have said something, protested, but that’s where it ends. I must have passed out after that.

“How long?” I ask the Brute.

“Huh?”

“How long have you been carrying all of us?”

“Dunno.”

“You’ll wear yourself out.”

He humphs. “What else was I gonna do?” I nod a little. That’s how he is--not too bright, but unstoppable once he’s put himself to something. Whereas I calculate. I’m doing it now. It goes like this:

He can’t go on like this. If I stay where I am and conserve energy, I might be able to drag the other two, the smaller ones, after he falls.

Almost on cue, he stumbles and stops dead. His shoulders heave underneath me. “Put me down,” I say again, and this time he does, unslinging Jack from his other shoulder. Jack half-wakes but no more. “What are you doing?” I ask. “ _He_ can’t walk.”

“Yeah. You take him. I don’t wanna crush him.”

“What?”

“I can’t go anymore. You take him. Short stuff, too. Don’t wanna crush ‘em when I fall.” He doesn’t sound alarmed, or even unhappy, just exhausted. Leaving him becomes suddenly unthinkable. My mouth fills with bargains and compromises.

“I will,” I say, “under one condition.” I wonder why I’m bothering. His hands are shaking and I can tell that he can’t focus on me, but I ignore his nonresponse. “I’ll take them if you keep going.”

He shakes his head no and holds Jack out to me again. I raise my hands. “Just for a while,” I assure him, “just in case.” Just in case of what I don’t know. I hardly know what I’m saying anymore.

But he agrees. Jack’s loose weight settles in my arms. After some consideration, I wake the Droll. He’s willing enough to walk again, but he’s suffering. I ignore it. All of it. He steadies himself against my leg, and the three of us trudge forward, bearing Jack, and I try not to think of how astronomical the odds are against us.


	2. Droog (II)

I am trying not to think about how much of this was luck. How _lucky_ we were to find this outcropping of rock jutting up out of the desert. How _lucky_ we were that there is a tiny, muddy spring here. How lucky that we’re all alive.

Jack is awake, staring at nothing with his elbows propped on his knees. I can see from the way he holds his shoulders that he won’t want to talk, that he needs more time. The Droll is sprawled on his back at Jack’s side, pushed far past his limit. He whimpers when Jack moves one hand to the curve of his stomach and rests it there. I pretend not to notice either of them.

The Brute is closer to me, sleeping the sleep of the deathly exhausted--the sleep I’d like to be sleeping. The rise and fall of his chest has deepened. A hand there against his carapace tells me his heartbeat has steadied and that he is now merely hot instead of boiling in his skin. I allow a small smile of triumph: fetching the miniscule amounts of water the spring provides with only my cupped hands has been exhausting, but it’s paid off.

On a sudden impulse--something I don’t get many of--I lean down and press my cheek to his, bracing myself in the sand on the other side of his head. Not even his breathing changes, and after a moment, I feel foolish and pull away.

It’s full dark now, and I am beginning to feel cold. I pull my knees close to my chest and put my aching head down on them. My knuckle is brushing the Brute’s elbow, a single warm spot I can still feel when I fall asleep.


	3. Slick (I)

It’s all a big fucking miracle. I’m not dead. Just fucking great. The band of idiots I came out here with is alive too, because I guess the only thing better than dying alone in the desert is being responsible for a troupe of fucking morons dying in the desert with you.

The Dignitary is asleep sitting up and and looking like a pathetic asshole, so I leave the Droll--who pretty much always looks like a pathetic asshole, and a waste of my time--and go over and plant my foot in his shoulder. He goes over like a sack of grain and picks himself up slowly, which is weird, so I cross my arms over my chest and take a step back.

“The hell is wrong with you?” I ask while he glares at me through slitted eyes like an inscrutable shithead, which is what he is.

“I’m tired,” he says flatly.

“We’re all tired.”

“From carrying you,” he says.

That stops me for a second, but I’ll have time to feel bad when we’re not laying around under a rock in the middle of the fucking desert. “Okay, great,” I say, “I’m really glad you told me that absolutely vital piece of information. Too bad nobody gives a shit. Do you know what time it is?”

“No,” he says.

“ _It’s fucking night-time!_ That means it is roughly not one thousand fucking degrees out here. Get your ass up.”

The way he’s looking at me, I’m glad he doesn’t have his staff, not that I’m letting him know he makes me nervous. Give a guy like that an inch and he’ll just take the fuck over. But he’s not really doing anything but giving me that look.

“Hey!” I say, “Did you hear me?” I get in his face a little. Up close, I can tell he’s just about played out, but I’m gonna play him out the rest of the way. That’s why I’m the goddamn boss and he isn’t. “I said get the fuck up! Do you wanna die when the sun comes back up? I’m sure we could all sleep like a bunch of whiny-ass babies, but you know what? I can wait, and so can you, and so can--”

“Not the Brute.”

Goddamnit, just when I was getting some momentum. “What.”

“Don’t wake the Brute,” he says.

“Why, what the fuck is wrong with him?”

“He collapsed. You were still out.”

I give the Brute a quick glance. He looks like he might be pretty sick. I nod and say, “We’ll get the Droll up.” The Dignitary looks like he’s got sand in his carapace, which he probably does, but it’s more about what I just said. “Don’t--” I say, “just--fuck. We’ll make it up to him later. Okay?”

“Okay.” And he gets up. Finally. I let out a little sigh. I thought for a second he was gonna fall apart n me, but in the end he’s still the guy I can count on. I slap him on the back and he jumps.

“We’ll start by digging out that shitty-ass spring you found,” I tell him. He nods and starts shaking sand out of his rags, which is a fucking waste of time, but I let him do it. Whatever keeps his head on straight.

I go over to the Droll and we get to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really hoping Slick sounds at least vaguely like Slick and not too much like...Karkat.


	4. Slick (II)

We work until we barely feel the cold, me and the Dignitary and the Droll, and the Brute lays there like a lump and I try pretty fucking hard not to think of him as a useless fuck, since he apparently almost died dragging our asses around out here. I even go the extra mile and drag his fat ass further under the rock outcropping so he won’t fry when the sun comes up, and then I use him as a footrest while me and the Dignitary sit with our backs against the stone, which is jagged, and the Droll goes to sleep in between us.

We’ve got water and shade. We’re ready for sunrise, but it never fucking comes.

It just gets colder.

Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Then I suddenly remembered that Alternia is day half the year and night the other half. Or something like that.  
> Deuce is up next!


	5. Deuce (I)

The boss calls us by our suits now. He’s Spades, I’m Clubs, HB is Hearts, and DD is Diamonds. Those are good names, easy for me to remember, but he still grumbles that we need something better. When I ask him what, he shows his teeth and says he hasn’t decided yet, but I am sure it will be good, whatever it is.

I cannot remember when the sun went down, but it is very dark and cold now. HB--I mean Hearts--is still asleep, so I crawl up under his arm, which is nice and hard and big and warm. When I move his arm, he says, “Grff,” and opens his eyes, which is a surprise! He has been sleeping for...I do not remember how long, but it has been a long time.

“Hey, short stuff,” he says.

“Hi, HB!” I say, then “I mean, hi Hearts!” because I forgot about our new names.

“How long’ve I been out?” he says.

I think about it.

“Never mind,” he says after a while.

“Okay, Hearts!” I say. “Are you better now? Diamonds said you were sick.”

“I guess I was. I remember feelin’ pretty rotten. Don’t feel so great now, neither.”

“Oh.” Poor Hearts. I put my arms as far around his chest as I can (it is not very far) and squeeze. “Should I tell Diamonds? He said to tell him if--” I remember something all of a sudden, and it is kind of scary. “Will you die?” I ask, but I try not to sound too worried. “Diamonds said you might die.”

“Huh. Shows what he knows.”

“So you won’t?”

“I oughta knock the sonuvabitch’s teeth out fer tellin’ ya that.”

I am pretty sure he did not answer the question, so I ask it again. “So you are not going to die?”

“No, I ain’t.”

“Promise?”

He growls, but he never growls very loudly at me, so it does not make me nervous. “Sure, whatever,” he says. “Promise.”

“Okay.”

I am very tired, so I squirm further under his warm, heavy arm and go to sleep.


	6. Deuce (II)

After we sleep some more, Diamonds wants Hearts to stand up and walk around. He follows so closely behind Hearts that I think he will run into him, but he never does. Hearts moves more slowly than usual, and I think Diamonds looks worried, but it is hard to tell. His face always looks almost the same. I am worried too, but they look busy, so I go find the boss.

The boss is walking back and forth on the other side of the rock, quickly, keeping his legs stiff. His shoulders are all hiked up, and he is grumbling at the sand.

“Um,” I say, but I am nervous and my voice is not very loud, so he does not hear me. “Um, SS? Hello?”

He hears me then. He turns around very quickly and says, “I told you to call me Spades!”

A little squeak jumps out of my mouth before I can cover it with my hand. “I am sorry, boss! I mean Spades.”

His shoulders go down a little bit, and he starts to talk more quietly. “What do you want, Clubs?”

“Are we going to keep staying here?”

He sighs. “No. We can’t stay here. That’s the fucking problem,” he says, but he does not yell again.

“Because there is no food here?” I ask.

“Right. And that spring ain’t reliable. But we can’t fucking leave with Hearts sick like this.”

“Won’t he get better sooner if he has food and good water?”

“Yeah.”

“So we should go find some!”

“We gotta stick together,” he says. “What if it’s too far, huh? What happens if me and Diamonds go, and the spring dries up while we’re gone? Your asses are dead when we get back, that’s what. If we get back.”

“Then we should go together!” I say. I would much rather stay together anyway.

“Yeah, except Hearts maybe can’t keep pace like this. Except we might lose him before we even get anyplace. He needs to recover, except the longer we stay here without any food, the weaker he gets, the weaker we all fucking get!”

“Oh.”

He grins at me, except he does not look happy. “They call that a double bind, little guy.”

I am not quite sure who they are, or why they would call it that, but the boss looks unhappy about it, and I think they are wrong. “It is OK, boss,” I tell him.

“Oh, yeah? If you had some kind of brilliant flash of inspiration for once in your vacant-headed life, please do me the fucking favor of letting me know.”

Everyone says things like that. I do not mind it too much, because sometimes my vacant head lets me see things they do not notice, because I am not thinking too much to distract me. “HB--I mean Hearts--is strong,” I say. “He will make it. If he gets tired, we can all help him. It is not so hot anymore! It will be OK.”

The boss is staring at me. “That’s it?” he says. “That’s all you got?”

“Yes!”

He stares at me for a while longer, and then he lets out a big, loud breath. “Okay, Clubs. Fine.” He shakes his finger in my face. “I’m trusting you on this. If you make me regret it, I’ll make you fuckin’ regret it. Got that?”

I nod and smile at him, and say, “Yes, boss.”

He smacks me on the shoulder, but I think he means it in the nice way. “You’re a weird little fucker, you know that?” he says. “C’mon, let’s go see what those two assholes are up to.”

He keeps his hand on my shoulder and we go together.


	7. Boxcars (I)

The Boss names me Boxcars on account of when we’re shootin’ craps with the little bones we find in the desert, I’m always rollin’ boxcars. When he does it, he’s sittin’ across the gameboard we drew in the sand, and his eyes look like they’re about ready to catch fire.

“Yeah,” he says, “Hearts Boxcars. Hearts fucking Boxcars. That’s you. You got that?”

Hearts Boxcars. On account of how I always roll boxcars. On account of I’m such a lucky bastard. On account of how boxcars is the biggest roll and I’m so fuckin’ big, so I could carry the other three, so they were still alive, so Diamonds could carry me water, so I didn’t die when I got too hot and blacked out. Like I said, lucky. “Yeah, I got that,” I tell the boss.

“Now you,” he says, eyes still on fire, and his finger jumps out and points at Clubs.

“Snake Eyes,” I say right off the bat, on account of Clubs’ head looks just like a pair of dice rollin’ one each.

The boss says, “Shut the fuck up. No one asked you.” I show him my teeth, and he shows me his back.

Clubs blinks his two round eyes at us. “Deuce,” Spades says. “Clubs Deuce. Our fuckin’ wildcard. No one sees this shit coming. Okay, Clubs? Got that?”

“Clubs...Deuce,” Clubs says, quiet.

“ _Got_ it?”

“Yes! I do!”

Spades’ finger moves to Diamonds. Sometimes it looks to me like they talk to each other with just their eyes, like they’re doin’ now. I don’t get it. Spades doesn’t even hafta think about a name, he just points straight at Diamonds and says, “Droog.”

“Hey! That ain’t even a real word!” I say. It don’t seem fair to Diamonds to have a name that makes no sense.

“Didn’t I tell you to shut up?” says the boss. “Droog.”

And Diamonds smiles just a little bit on one side of his mouth and says, “Diamonds Droog.”

And that leaves the boss, who’s just sittin’ there with a grin on his face.

“So what do we call ya, boss?” I finally ask.

The grin gets bigger. “Slick.”

I reach over to cover Clubs’ ears, but it’s too late.

“That’s obscene,” Diamonds says, lookin’ like he smells somethin’ bad.

“Damn right,” the boss says. “Slick. The bitch’s downfall.” He leans back, laughin’ a little. “So if she’s not dead by the time everyone knows my name, if she ever shows her fucking face again, she’ll _know_. Besides, who gives a fuck about frogs?” He gives me and Diamonds a look. “Pansy-ass motherfuckers, that’s who. So. Spades Slick.”

We’re quiet.

“ _Got that?_ ” he hisses.

Diamonds ins the first to answer. “Got it, boss,” he says. “Spades Slick.”


	8. Boxcars (II)

“This is it,” Slick says. “This is where we stop.”

We’re standin’ around lookin’ all greenish in this weird, spooky light. It’s too far underground for the moons to reach, but the cave’s ceiling is covered in all these drippy-lookin’ spikes, and they’re glowin’.

And then there’s the lake. That’s glowin’ too, all the way from the shallows out to the other side where I can’t hardly see it. Drog says, “We don’t even know if it’s potable.” He’s kneelin’ a ways off on the shore, tryin’ to run the water through some kinda filter machine he picked up in the last ruin we passed through, but he don’t really know how it works, and I think it might be broken anyways.

Slick shrugs. “We’re out of bottled water, Diamonds. If we can’t drink it, we’re dead anyway, so who gives a fuck?”  
Droog ignores him and just keeps rattlin’ that device. The boss don’t like that much, so he charges into the glowin’ water about waist deep and just sticks his face in it. Droog freezes. Slick comes back out and yells, “Bluh! It’s warm. But it tastes fine.”

Droog tells us he’s gonna wait for Slick to die or not before he tries any, but it’s all me and Deuce need to hear; we go in right off and drink our fill. It tastes soft, like minerals, but nothin’ bitter. Eventually, when we don’t all die, Droog cups his hands and drinks too, and then he goes behind a rock so he can take his rags off and wash ‘em. Weird guy.

Deuce paddles around me, and I explore. There’s some holes I can’t see--sometimes I go down above my head and hafta swim out--and some I can, dark spots underfoot. I’m standin’ at the edge of one, thinkin’ about goin’ around, when just barely see somethin’ move through the milky glow of the water. Somethin’ that might be a tail.

All of a sudden, I remember how hungry I am. Kinda playin’ around for Deuce, I stick my hand way down under the water and wiggle my fingers around and say, “Here, fishy fishy.”

Only I guess the fish don’t think it’s a joke. And it’s big.

It comes up with its big whiskery mouth wide open and clamps down on my hand. I close up my fist pretty damn quick to keep from losin’ any fingers, but it don’t have no teeth to speak of (and lucky thing for me, too).

It grabs my hand and flips around and drags me under for a second, and I can hear Deuce yellin’ from up above the water, and I wanna get out, but I don’t wanna lose the fish; it thinks I’m gonna be dinner, but I think just the opposite. So I open my hand up, and just as it figures out what’s goin’ on and starts tryin’ to back off, I grab for whatever I can get, and wind up hookin’ two fingers through its gills. I make it back up for a quick breath. Slick’s shoutin’ now too, and I get a quick glimpse of Droog’s head pokin’ up over a rock, just starin’, before it drags me under again.

We have a hell of a fight. It’s been a long time since Skaia, and underwater is new, but it all comes back, and I get lost in the rush of tryin’ to kill somethin’ that’s tryin’ to kill me. It bashes me into a few rocks, and half drowns me a coupla times, but in the end I drag it back to shore and snap its spine with a flick of my wrist.

“There,” I say, and blow water out my nose. “Dinner.”

Everyone’s starin’ while I sit down and try to catch my breath, but I don’t care. This is the end of the road, the boss said so. We got water, and now we got food, too. I don’t hafta watch Droog stumble and brush me off when I try to help. I don’t hafta watch Slick give Deuce his share of water when he thinks no one sees, even though he’s just as thirsty.

We’re here now, and we’re gonna be fine.

**Author's Note:**

> So in theory, there's going to be at least one chapter for each member of the Crew. I have Droog and Slick done, but the other two could be a while, as I'm currently hard at work on something entirely different.  
> Some vague hints of laying a foundation for eventual Droog/Boxcars shipping in here, too. You'll see more of that from me. You have been warned.


End file.
